


Extreme Job Hunting

by Asphodelia



Series: Runaways [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Puppy Love, Running Away, Shopping, Teenagers, criminal newbies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-16 23:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9294815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asphodelia/pseuds/Asphodelia
Summary: A couple weeks into his life as an outlaw things were going great for Ben. He had his freedom, some money, and a super cute partner in crime.And then the voice came back.-Ben and Armitage run into some complications while on a job. Also; shopping.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Last time: Ben and Armitage approached an old enemy of Ben's dad about getting their first job as outlaws. Armitage had an opportunity to leave Ben behind and return to the Order, but chose to stay and help him complete their test-mission.

After they’d successfully retrieved the liquor bottle Ben and Armitage had been rewarded with their first real job: several crates which they were to load onto their ship and take to one of their client’s associates on another nearby moon. It went smoothly and soon after the same client, Jojo, had another similar job for them. 

That made two weeks that they’d been working for Jojo, an old enemy of Han Solo’s. Ben didn’t like him, but he hadn’t expected to (and Armitage probably would have hated him just for calling himself ‘Jojo’. Not that someone named ‘Armitage’ should really judge). They had only gone to Jojo because they couldn’t risk looking for work among people who might end up telling his dad. Other than on the first day Jojo hadn’t threatened them or anything, but he and Armitage agreed that he probably would again.

“It amuses him having his enemy’s son under his thumb. We can use that for now, but we should also work towards expanding our clientele so we aren’t reliant on ‘Jojo’ when he inevitably turns on us.” Armitage had said on their way back to Ba’al 6 from their second mission. He’d been sitting in what was becoming his usual place in the copilot’s chair, his legs crossed neatly in front of him and a contemplative look on his face. 

The novelty of hearing him talk about them like they were a unit, like he’d really come around to the idea of being Ben’s partner, had not worn off. Part of it was relief - Ben had thought there was a good chance Armitage was lying when he said he’d give this a chance, and he had no idea what he’d do if the other boy just started sprinting away from him or something. He couldn’t let Armitage go back and tell the First Order about him, but he also wasn’t prepared to chase him down and lock him up.

He needed Armitage to choose to stay. It seemed like maybe he really had. 

“I know. I’m thinking we should start trying to look for jobs with some of the people he’s sending stuff to. They might have something more interesting for us than just carrying things around.” 

“Looking for a challenge?” Armitage’s voice, usually calculating or irritated, was coloured by a kind of fond amusement that made Ben feel warm inside.

“Maybe.” He had smirked. “We’ve got to start building up some street cred, you know. Can’t have people thinking we’re just delivery boys.”

Armitage had nodded in agreement, like he actually thought Ben might be good at this. 

They had some money now, enough to buy weapons and feed themselves regularly. The dark voice that had lurked in the back of Ben’s consciousness for years hadn’t uttered so much as a peep since he’d run away. Armitage was his friend and his partner. 

Overall, things were looking up. 

-

Armitage had not left the academy behind to co-run a courier service. He was glad that Ben also saw the necessity in branching out from their work for Jojo to look for new clients and more interesting forms of employment. 

Not that he had really left the academy behind, or found criminality at all exciting. 

After he had ignored the opportunity to abandon Ben that first time, had been near several holonet-connected devices without trying to send a message to his father, and realized that what his father and his instructors at the academy would have wanted him to do would have been to smother Ben with his pillow that first night he’d fallen asleep in the bunk opposite his...

Armitage knew there were a lot of ways he could escape Ben and this whole silly misadventure, and he had not taken advantage of any of them, so he was forced to acknowledge that he had chosen to stay. For now. He would return to the Order and the academy, but not quite yet. 

Armitage had spent his entire life either in his father’s home or at the academy. Being out in the galaxy like this was valuable experience, and he supposed he wasn’t ready to throw that away. It would be hard to reclaim his old status at the academy when he went back, but the things he was learning now would help him. The contacts he was making now might also help him some day, give him an edge over his peers once they left the academy and started on the work of war. 

Cultivating a friendship with Ben and helping advance their careers as ‘outlaws’ could also easily benefit him in the future. If when he did leave Ben behind they were still on good terms, and Ben was on the path to achieving some status in the criminal world, then he could be a valuable ally at some point. If Armitage found himself in trouble, there would be someone he could call.  
He would be an idiot not to see how useful that could be. So he would be Ben’s friend now, and someday Ben would be an ally. 

For now, they needed weapons. 

So far nothing they had done had been particularly dangerous. Yes, all the people they were dealing with were thieves, killers, and other criminal types, but none of them had any reason to want to hurt them. They were just the kids who brought them stuff. They couldn't just trust people to behave in ways that made sense, though. Especially if they were going to start taking on a wider variety of work, they would need a means of defending themselves. 

Now that they had successfully completed two deliveries, they had a bit of money to invest in protection. They headed down to the market on Ba’al 6 the morning after they returned from their second job to do some shopping. Ben seemed less than enthused about what they found.

“They’re certainly primitive, but I somehow doubt that’s your complaint.” Armitage commented quietly to Ben, not wanting the vendor to overhear and become insulted before they could negotiate a price. 

“I’m more trained in, uh, swordplay.” Ben shrugged, absently picking up a dated and unreliable-looking laser weapon. It became immediately apparent that he had no idea how to hold the thing, so Armitage took it from him and put it back on the table. 

“Lightsabers?” Ben had actually been trained to use the old jedi weapons? Armitage couldn’t help sounding intrigued. 

“Yep!” Ben was smiling like he always did when Armitage expressed any interest in him. 

“I can teach you how to shoot, if you’d like.” Armitage focused on a promising-looking weapon, picking it up and considering the weight of it in his hand. “And we can look for a sword. Not a lightsaber, obviously.”

Ben had agreed enthusiastically, so they’d purchased only the one pistol (they didn’t have the funds to waste on a second while Ben couldn’t even use it. Armitage would teach him on his own weapon until he became proficient) and moved on to looking for a sword. What they managed to find was more of a machete than a sword, but it would do for the time being. 

“I’ll need a better belt to keep this on.” Ben commented as he slashed at the air with his new blade, getting a feel for it. Then he grinned in a manner that Armitage found worrying. “We need other kinds of clothes too. And by ‘we’ I mean you.”

Armitage had known that, it was on his own mental shopping list, but he hadn’t realized Ben would be so…enthused. All he needed was a jacket or something to replace Ben’s borrowed robes while they were in town. He still wore the jacket from his uniform on the ship.

Ben was pulling him towards a market stall with some items of clothing displayed out front before he had a chance to protest. Once they got there he released Armitage and looked at him expectantly. 

“So…what do you want to wear?”

“I want to wear my uniform.” He knew it was pointless to say, but he couldn’t help it. He looked around the stall at the offerings – rich brown work boots, shirts in deep blues and greens, all kinds of vibrant scarfs and vests – and could not see a single thing he could imagine wearing. Nothing looked like it could be part of the image he had of himself.

“…Your eyes are blue.”

Armitage turned to stare questioningly at Ben.

“I mean, blue would probably look nice on you. Because it’d bring out your eyes.” Ben spoke kindly, like he saw that this was harder for Armitage than it maybe should be and was just trying to be helpful. 

Armitage looked around again. He saw that there was a black jacket with silver buttons that would actually look right at home back at the academy. It wasn’t regulation, but it was regulation-adjacent. Armitage would be able to look the part of a First Order cadet and the young ne’er-do-well he was pretending to be at the same time.

Then, his eyes caught on a blue jacket made of either leather or some kind of realistic synthetic substitute. It had tarnished brass buttons, no collar, and looked to be exactly Armitage’s size. When he touched it, it was soft.

It wasn’t something he’d wear, though. Armitage looked back over towards the black jacket, but his view was blocked by Ben who had come to stand next to him.

“Oh, that’s cool! I half expected you to try to buy an outfit that pretty much looked like your uniform, but not.” Ben trailed a hand down the arm of the jacket, feeling the softness of the material for himself. “You’re definitely getting this. Very ‘you’.” 

Armitage still couldn’t imagine himself in the coat, despite having been drawn to it. Still, Ben thought it suited him, and Armitage hadn’t thought anything but black and dark grey would ever suit him. It was strangely exciting to think that Ben could be right. So, they bought the blue jacket along with some dark brown slacks and boots that were considerably more rugged than the dress shoes from his uniform. 

Then, they went back to the Breakaway and discussed the future; what kind of work did they want to do next, and where would they look for it? When would they have time for shooting lessons? Would Armitage let Ben burn his uniform now that he had ‘better’ clothes? 

There was laughter, and teasing, and not all of it was Ben. Armitage gave himself permission to enjoy this little interlude in his life for what it was. Someday, he’d be a proud officer commanding his own star destroyer and that would be what fulfilled him. So long as he didn’t lose sight of that there was no harm in smiling now with Ben in the transport ship he had started thinking of as ‘theirs’. 

-

“Come on! What are you doing?!” Armitage called back at him, having realized Ben wasn’t running with him anymore. 

Jojo had sent them out on another simple delivery and, after making it, they had decided to spend more time around the place where they’d dropped off the goods in hopes of learning about some different work. They had. 

The new job was, put simply, theft. One party had stolen something that a second party wanted to steal for themselves, confident that their victims wouldn’t retaliate for fear of drawing attention to their initial crime. Their clients couldn’t be seen in the vicinity of the crime, however, as they had a business relationship with their victims they needed to preserve. As unknowns on the scene, Ben and Armitage were the perfect candidates. 

It was exactly the kind of job Ben had wanted. They had snuck into the building the gang they were robbing used as a base, located the box (they were given enough information to identify it, but not told what was inside), and started sneaking out.

It had been a lot of fun until they got caught. 

Armitage had noticed them being noticed and acted quickly, ducking behind a corner and firing on their observer. The thug was forced to take cover and they ran in the only direction they could – up a nearby flight of stairs. The only way out was a third-story window. 

“The ground is solid stone! If we jump we’ll only break our legs.” Armitage had been skeptical, but Ben had pointed out that they really had no other choice. 

“If we don’t jump we’ll get shot! Listen, we’ll be okay. I’ve…I’ve got this.”

“What do you mean you’ve ‘got this’!?”

“Just trust me, okay! Jump!”

And they had. Ben had closed his eyes as they fell, reaching out into the force and using it to push upwards away from the ground. He did not manage a smooth landing for either of them – both he and Armitage ended up tumbling on the rocks, scraping knees and elbows – but they slowed enough as they approached to avoid any serious injury. 

“Oh. You…that was the force, wasn’t it?” Armitage looked at him in slight awe and Ben couldn’t help the pride that swelled in his chest.

**_Look how impressed he is by your power. Imagine how he'd look at you if you allowed yourself to reach your full potential._ **

Ben’s proud feeling collapsed inwards on itself; these were not his own thoughts.

“Yeah.” Ben ignored the voice as best he could, cursing himself for having risked using the force. Not that he’d really had much choice. “Come on, let’s go.”

They’d started running, and quickly found themselves being followed. 

**_You could demolish these men with a wave of your hand, crack their skulls against the pavement and be done with them in moments._ **

_I don’t need to do anything like that for us to get away._ Ben cursed himself again for replying to the voice. When he engaged with it it always haunted him for longer.

**_Someday you will. To protect yourself. To complete a mission. To keep that boy with you. You will turn to the force, to the power of its darkness. You were right to leave Skywalker, even if it wasn’t to accept my own teachings. You think you have run from me by running from the rest of your life, but the opposite is true. This path will lead you to me, to darkness, because that is your destiny._ **

Ben didn’t process that he had stopped running. Was that true? There were times when he’d been tempted by the things the voice offered him. What if he was just fooling himself with this whole outlaw business? What if what he really wanted was to leave his jedi training behind and look for excuses to explore the dark side? There were times when that would seem like a ridiculous thought, but the truly scary thing about the voice was that it seemed to know him better than he did. 

“Come on! What are you doing?!” Armitage was calling from a ways ahead of him on the path, having stopped running because Ben had stopped running.

Ben realized that their pursuers were catching up. Armitage ducked behind a tree and prepared to cover him as he stood like an idiot in the middle of the road, arguing with a voice in his head.

**_He’s thinking that you’re a liability now. Useless. You should give him a better demonstration of your power using these criminals._ **

Ben shook his head rapidly and ran towards Armitage, who ended up firing two shots in warning to hold their pursuers back while Ben caught up. They made it back to Breakaway Delta and got into space as fast as possible. 

“What was that!?” Armitage was seething as Ben’s shaking hands punched in the coordinates for their clients’ home moon. 

“I’m sorry.” Ben’s voice sounded weak to his own ears and he hated it. “I got…distracted, I guess.”

“By what? You were just standing there! What was more important than running away from the angry criminals?” Armitage’s voice had lost some of its venom, leaving him sounding simply mad instead of furious. 

**_He pities you._** There was laughter in the voice.

-

“Shut up!” Ben yelled suddenly, standing and looking as if he was looking for something to break. 

Between the sudden fury now and the random bout of inaction during their job, Armitage was forced to acknowledge that he really didn’t know Ben. It was not a good feeling. 

“You’re the one that almost got us caught back there.” Armitage looked Ben in the eye as he spoke, refusing to be intimidated by his temper. 

“I – no, I know, I wasn’t talking to you.” Ben’s fury turned to apology again and Armitage was caught between being offended and worried. He settled on confused.

“Ben, what’s going on?” He asked slowly.

Ben looked off to the side, like he was listening to something, then shook his head violently and stomped out of the cockpit. 

Armitage felt helpless. 

He wondered whether he should go after Ben. Part of him wanted to find out what was wrong, and part of him felt like Ben probably needed some space. Neither of those instincts was correct, though. The truth was that whatever was wrong with Ben was his own problem and Armitage’s only concern should be making sure it didn’t negatively impact him.

Armitage kept that thought in mind as he sat in the copilot’s chair, waiting for Ben to come back. He wanted to hug his knees to his chest, an urge he hadn’t had since he was about 8. He didn’t give into it. 

Armitage sat very still for about an hour, not-worrying about Ben, before he started looking for a distraction. 

The box they had stolen was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room. It wasn’t particularly large or heavy, and the lock looked fairly simple. 

They’d been told not to open it. They’d never opened any other cargo they were told not to, but Ben always seemed curious…

-

“If you don’t get out here I’m going to open the box without you!” Armitage’s voice echoed through the ship, reaching Ben where he had curled up on his bunk. After overturning the two unused bunks and generally making a mess of the room.

He was fairly sure he had a bruise from kicking the wall. 

The voice had been silent for a good fifteen minute stretch at this point, but he still wasn’t confident it was gone. He should stay put until he knew for sure. Until he could think of what he was going to say to Armitage, because of course he was going to want answers. Answers that Ben knew he was entitled to, but which he wasn’t ready to give.

Once Armitage knew about the voice everything would be different. Ben had just started to think that maybe he actually liked him, and now that was ruined. Now he’d see him as unstable – crazy, even – and he’d always be thinking about how much of what Ben did was because of the voice, just like his parents did.

When he’d first run away he’d felt free. He was going to blaze his own path, be his own person. Armitage was going to be the first person to see him that way, to know the Ben that Ben wanted to be. To not see him as some troubled, burdensome, kid who needed to be contained. And now –

“Seriously, I’m opening it! Hurry up if you want to see!”

Why did Armitage think he cared about what was in the box? Sure, he’d been curious, but that was before the jerk in his head showed up. Now, he just wanted to hide from his friend’s judgement for as long as possible. 

Although, Armitage didn’t sound like he was mad. Or like he pitied Ben. Or like he was concerned with anything except opening that box….Curiosity got the better of Ben and he rose from his cot.

Maybe Armitage was going to let the whole thing go? That didn’t seem likely, but when Ben arrived back in the cockpit Armitage was sitting cross-legged on the floor trying to tamper with the lock. His voice when he spoke just seemed excited.

“Oh, good, do you know how to pick a lock? It occurs to me that I don’t.”

“You’re…we’re not supposed to open it.” Ben was confused. 

“We’re teenage delinquents who they hired to steal. They were stupid to think we wouldn’t look.” 

Ben agreed, but it boggled his mind that Armitage was the one saying the words. 

“You’re a delinquent now, are you?” Ben felt a smile begin to tug at the corner of his mouth. This wasn’t what was supposed to be happening. Armitage was supposed to be angry, and Ben was supposed to be sulking, and everything was supposed to be ruined. But maybe it wasn’t.

Armitage blushed as he scooted over on the floor, gesturing for Ben to come take a crack at the lock. He hesitantly lowered himself to sit next to him on the floor and noticed as he did so that Armitage was watching him with a curiosity he’d been careful to keep out of his voice. 

He hadn’t let anything go, he just wasn’t going to ask. He was interested, but he wasn’t going to pressure Ben into telling him anything even though he had every right to after the turn their job had taken. 

“I’m sorry I almost got us caught.”

“You also saved us from that fall, so it evens out.” 

“I’ll tell you everything. I promise. Just not…” He wasn’t ready, but he felt suddenly like he would be. Soon, even. 

“You’d better. For now I’ll settle for a lock-picking lesson.” 

“Looking to expand your delinquent skillset?”

“Shut up.” 

Ben laughed and started picking the lock while Armitage leaned in close to watch.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think!


End file.
